Comments: 1-15, 16-22
The second day I owned this car the water pump blew (plastic impeller broke, common problem with Contours) and in turn the thermostat, head gasket, and head all blew, leaving me with a smoking, steaming mess of a car. Under the Virginia 'Lemon Law' I was able to get all the repairs done for free, only to have the new water pump break within 200 miles. Then the air conditioner died, then the new thermostat blew, once again leaving me with a steaming, overheated mess. This being my second SVT contour, I then gave up and traded it in for a Chevy.
SVT contours in general (I had a red one and a black one, both 1998) are one of the most fun cars to drive ever. They handle incredibly (on par with BMW 3 series), are very comfortable with leather bucket seats, and they are pretty fast (but can easily be made faster.)
Unfortunately, they have that good old Ford reliability, and cannot be trusted past about 40 thousand miles.
I would disagree with those statements. I can't speak for SVT, but I have a 1998 contour Se with 99k on it and it runs perfectly.
I think a lot of people have too high expectations of their vehicles. you expect to beat it and have no effect, but I'm a mechanic and I can tell you differently.
I would be willing to bet 90% of people are out there driving around completely oblivious to their vehicles' maintenance schedule. the funniest part about that is that people don't realize there aren't very many parts on a car designed to last more 20-40 thousand miles.
So before you go talking trash on Ford and definitely long before you buy a Chevy, make sure your car isn't breaking down because of something you're NOT doing. also remember cars DO break down, Chevy more than Ford, but not nearly as often as a Mopar.
I have to ask the question - which parts specifically are designed to fail at 20K to 40K miles? The transmission (which seems to receive the bulk of the negative comments)? Seems if you make a comparison to whatever Chevy is equivalent (Malibu?), the owners have *way* less problems than with the Contour. And there is no way any of the Japanese equivalents (with the exception of the Mazda (s) that use the same tranny) have the same sort of negative reaction. Maybe it's only Ford parts that are designed to last just 30K miles?
I considered buying an SVT when they were new, but ended up deciding against it. I did buy a 1997 Sport with 58,000 miles on it with the V6 and 5-speed combination. It was fairly fun to drive When I sold the car 18 months later (in 2000), it had 83,000 miles on it, it was on it's 3rd water pump, the rear main engine seal had been replaced, the fuel pump had been replaced, 4 sensors were replaced, and numerous other repairs were performed. I had this thing towed at least 6 times, and spent over $5000 on repairs and maintenance. When I sold it the "check engine" light was coming on intermittently. The Ford dealer told me that it would cost $1800 to fix, but would do nothing to affect the performance of the car (except pass the emissions test - the light being on is an automatic failure). When I tried to trade the car in, the first dealer I went to offered me $1500 for the car. When a dealer offers you $1500 for a 4 year old car, that's just sad - and it speaks volumes about the car and how it is viewed. The 2.5L V6 is very unreliable and poorly engineered. I laughed when I heard that they stuck a version of this in the X-type Jaguar. 0-60 in close to 10 seconds with the automatic. Not impressive.
I never ever had any problems with my contour its been maintained an never broke down, the transmission works fine,it works like the day I bought it, i seriously think these problems are because people don't know how to take care of a car. And you got to remember,did the previous owner beat it to hell.
No offense meant to all of you Ford bashers (with the exception of one of you) but my family has had Ford cars and trucks for the better part of the last 20 years one of them a 1989 F-Series has 325,000 miles on it and it has not had nearly the same amount of problems or repairs that you guys are having to face. Also as the owner of a 131K SVT Contour, I am not going to deny the water pump this car is on its second, but it was replaced at 65K and is still working great now, I just brought the car to a mechanic to have him look it over and the only thing that needed replacing is one of the exhaust pipes is beginning to rust due to the salt in the winters up north, I know that the SVT is supposed to be a sporty car and that is what it is, it is not a sports car, to drive it like a Porsche 911 turbo would be crazy, if you really want to know contact Ford and they will call the car a sports tourer which means it handles well and can gain some speed, if you really think about the way you drove your contour svt's think about how many 0-60's you did and how often you drove it like you were a rally car driver, if you don't do that ford cars can last you 200,000 miles just like any import, oh and by the way to comment to someone before, you can go and buy you BMW 328i or any of the japanese offerings, but if it does break at all do you really want to pay the shipping to get a factory OEM part to fix it.
I don't know why the previous posters have had problems. Apparently they have either had a lemon, or have beaten the car and then been surprised that it broke. I have a '99 Contour SE Sport with the 2.5L and the MTX-75 (the manual tranny for all of you that don't know) and I love it. I'll admit I like to drive it spirited quite a lot, the secondaries make the most wonderful sound, and I haven't had ANY problems with it. But of course I run Mobil 1 5W-30 in it, change the oil every 3 months/5000 miles, and am not surprised when normal wear parts wear out and fail. Sensors? Honestly, when have you ever had a non-Ford that had sensors last forever? These comments appear surprised that their thermostat or temperature sensors go out after 40K miles, and I don't understand why. They do not last forever, none do, if I found a car with sensors that I never had to replace, I'd punch myself in the face to wake myself up, 'cause I'd be dreaming. You had some bad experiences with the car, now you think all Fords are bad? Grow up, look at the facts, cars are not sold if they are meant to break every 40K miles, oh yeah, it's really feasible that car companies would be able to get away with that, you know, it's not like the government, you know, tests and checks cars before approving them for consumers.
I would have to say that if you want a work truck, buy American, if you want a reliable car, buy Japanese/German. Being a previous Contour owner I have to agree with the problems this poster experienced. You can't blame a car owner for the fact that a plastic impeller in a water pump breaks (and that it costs ~400 to replace). That the multi-stage catalytic dies because (and I found this out later) they get too hot. Or that the Transmission dies, even under regular maintenance. I agree that tranny's do go, but replacement at ~3000 is a little surprising. Especially for a vehicle less than 20,000. I did get 200,000 out of the car though, and it was fun to drive!
I had a Ford Bronco full size and it was fairly reliable. Once in a while something would break, but the car was 4-5 years old at the time so I expected it. I now own a 2000 Ford Contour SVT and it mostly likely will be my last Ford for quite sometime. I love the performance of the car, but unfortunately the car will not go over 4-5 months without some problem, therefore I cannot enjoy it. I have had to deal with failed IAC valve, noisy wiper, flaky fuel pump, knocking from rear suspension, and most of these things my Ford dealership refuses to fix under warranty. You can buy Ford all you want, but I am a convert. I will go back to BMW because I don't know if they are any more realiable, but at least they fix the problems. As for the japanese cars... Ford shoud send their engineers over there to study what those guys are doing if they want to improve the reliability of their cars.
"These comments appear surprised that their thermostat or temperature sensors go out after 40K miles, and I don't understand why. They do not last forever, none do, if I found a car with sensors that I never had to replace, I'd punch myself in the face to wake myself up, 'cause I'd be dreaming."
My 97 Escort has 125k miles on it and has never required one sensor or thermostat to be changed. The only time I replaced the thermostat was when I was doing a coolant change, and I thought I may as well do it while I was in there. The PO also replaced the O2 sensors before I bought it (general maintenance).
Aside from that, this car has never needed ANY electircal parts to be replaced, and is FULLY loaded with all the bells and whistles, incl keyless, power windows etc.
Hope you can make a hard fist! ;)
I'm not sure WHY the SVT Contour is even being mentioned in the same sentence as the 3-series.
I used to own a 1995 Contour and a 2000 BMW 3 series and there is no way in hell that the Contour can match the handling of the 3 series.
Plus the contour is the worst vehicle I have ever owned with 18 recalls. Ford sucks and they are the reason that I refuse to buy American cars.
Regarding Contour, I've put over 300,000 on three Audi's, 200,000 on a couple BMW's and am quite surprised how much I like driving this '96 V6 / 5-Speed Contour. With 200,000 miles, it has very little wrong, burns no oil and the traction control works great.
My 1998 ford contour has 157,000 miles and it runs perfect. The only thing I need to replace is the windshield because a rock hit on the freeway. Good gas, synthetic oil, with regular preventive maintenance will keep your car running for a long time.
This forum is no help to anyone. People compare fords to BMW and to Honda's and other cars. the fact is I have had two svt contours and this one has a wire harness and ECM problem. But the fact of the matter is ford discontinued this car for a reason not cause the car was perfect, but cause they had a better car with less problems to replace it. The fact is you cannot go and buy any limited high performance car and run it hard with out fixing it. I have friends with STI and EVO and when they run them hard they have to fix them too. fact of the matter if you can't deal with fixing a car then buy a bicycle cause no matter what you will always have to fix a car. regardless of a wearable part or not.
Someone please tell me why you have to go compare BMW to Ford. There is no contest on which is the best except for the price you are going to pay. All cars have problems, no matter if you are for or against American cars. Let it rest. Every brand of car is going to have a lemon amongst them. My cousin bought a 2006 Suzuki car and it broke down 2 hours later after leaving the lot. Taking care of a car has a lot to do with when you purchase a new or used car. That goes for Chevy, Ford and BMW etc.